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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27626902">The Moon, Drowning</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/LogicalParafox/pseuds/LogicalParafox'>LogicalParafox</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>RWBY</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Eye Trauma, F/F, F/M, Multi, Psychological Torture, Torture, disjointed timeline</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 17:07:18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,134</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27626902</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/LogicalParafox/pseuds/LogicalParafox</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Summer Rose died once but what became of her after? What if Salem had more questions for her and gave what was left of the silver-eyed warrior to her doctor to see what he could discover about her natural foe?</p><p>Heed the warnings, this is not a pleasant one.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Raven Branwen/Summer Rose/Taiyang Xiao Long</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Moon, Drowning</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Ah, she awakens.”</p><p>Summer swam hazily back into consciousness, her mind fogged and her vision blurred. She managed to open her eyes, squinting against the very bright lights that blinded her, with nothing distinguishable behind them but blackness.</p><p>“Welcome back to life.”</p><p>She tried to turn her head to see who was speaking, but found her body unresponsive, though whether through bindings or the drugs in her system she couldn’t tell.</p><p>The merciless lights forced her to shut her eyes, her head throbbing painfully before the drugs pulled her under again.</p>
<hr/><p>Darkness.</p><p>Summer tried to remember what was happening, but the nearest memories were all of pain and fear and confusion. Red eyes and red eyes and red eyes closing in. Snarling. Tearing. Weeping. Biting. Black fur and black hair and flashing fangs and gleaming blades and sharp claws. White moon. White cloak. White snow. A sense of triumph. A sense of failure. A surety of loss.</p><p>Darkness still. Were her eyes open?</p><p>The stories always said your life flashed before your eyes right before you died, but if this was death, her memories were taking their sweet time. She wanted to see her family again if these were her final moments… but perhaps the darkness meant that it was too late.</p><p>How had she died?</p><p>Abruptly she jolted forward as though seized by the throat.</p><p>Her boots squeak on the fallen snow. The footing is treacherous, she’ll have to watch out for that. The third and final Grimm pool of this assignment lies just ahead, and no protectors are appearing yet. Perhaps they spent their strength defending the first two. Based on the aerial footage this is the smallest and least significant, best to save for last when her strength ebbs.</p><p>Summer tucks away her scroll with the map and draws her weapon, blade unfolding forward and locking in place, nearly as tall as she. She handles it easily, using the blade to part bushes before her as she advances on the pool, snow crunching beneath her boots. The cold bites at her despite her heavy cloak, the scarf pulled up to protect her nose and mouth and throat. Her eyes are forced bare, goggles not an option when this is a mission only for her.</p><p>Memory again yanks her, disorienting as the scenery blurs.</p><p>Ozpin’s office. The headmaster sits behind his desk, tapping on screens and showing her the map. “These have popped up recently and have been far more productive than we usually see. The Grimm have wiped out villages here and here,” he says, red marks appearing on the map in a widening stain around the innocuous black dots. Summer feels her stomach lurch in revulsion. Grimm are antithetical to her existence. She will wipe them out.</p><p>“How soon can I go?”</p><p>“The transport is on the landing pad now.”</p><p>“And these are the only active pools currently?”</p><p>“Yes, you’ve done your work very well.”</p><p>Her vision blurs, eyes burning.</p><p>The first pool, surrounded by Megoliath, standing guard as Grimm often did at her approach. More fools they to make her job so simple. Summer presses a hand to her heart, remembering holding Ruby there against her chest, warm daughter and new life and the utter softness of her skin. Home.</p><p>Summer’s eyes are the spark and the Grimm burn, greyness encasing their darkness, eyes blotted out as they begin to flake and disintegrate.</p><p>Summer takes a deep breath in the suddenly quiet clearing and advances. She plants her blade in the ground and hops up to stand on its hilt, surveying the small pond of inky darkness.</p><p>This time a memory of Yang, bright little dragon all smiles and bubbling laughter and scraped knees.</p><p>Summer is blind as her eyes do their work.</p><p>Summer blinks and the pool is gone, a sunken pit empty of water or taint, a few wisps of gray smoke rising from where the darkness had been.</p><p>Griffons around the second, larger pool. Griffons are often guarding things, maybe. Summer’s experience of Grimm is unusual to say the least. A memory of her team at Beacon, whole and unsplintered. A brush of her wedding ring against her lips to burn the pool out of existence. She will protect humanity from this darkness. That is her purpose.</p>
<hr/><p>She approaches the last pool.</p><p>No, she is still standing in front of the last pool, remembering. Or is this the memory? Something about blinding lights. No, she is the blinding light, the undrowned moon come to wash away the fens with light.</p><p>This pool is unguarded, the Grimm perhaps spent. Perhaps this pool is too new to have spawned much darkness.</p><p>Summer takes a deep breath, bracing herself as she reaches for a memory of those she loves.</p><p>She opens her eyes, blind again as the bright power pours out of her. She is merely a vessel for the silver light that saves the world. She is its wielder, its protector.</p><p>Something cold. Is it hunger? Stomach feeling suddenly empty, a chill down her spine, but her belly feels… warm? Something warm running down her stomach, warmth washing down the front of her, so strange in this freezing wilderness. Summer blinks, her vision returning spottily and looks down. She sees herself, puts a hand to her stomach. Her fingers find wetness, come away red. Summer tries to understand what she’s seeing.</p><p>Summer turns and the pain arrives, ripping through her, stealing her breath. She turns to find… nothing. Her blood on the snow in a widening circle. Red eyes staring at her from among the trees. Dozens. Hundreds of eyes opening from the shadows as the snarls begin.</p><p>Summer reaches for her happiness, her family, but the first Beowolf slashes at her, tearing flesh as she stares at it with eyes gone gray, the silver light out of reach.</p><p>She gasps in pain, trying to focus. She trains for this. She trains for this situation endlessly, putting aside her body. Putting aside her needs and wants to unleash her purpose and bring peace to the world.</p><p>Summer digs her fingers in to her power, focusing, remembering her children. Her family. Her team. Shattered like the moon above but still…</p><p>She hears a ripping sound, once familiar, hears a voice calling her name. Summer loses her grip on the power as she turns, the awful feeling in her gut again. “Raven?” The name is a breathy gasp, barely whispered. It bubbles on her lips and she tastes blood, tries to breathe, coughs, spraying red.</p><p>Teeth in her arms, teeth in her legs, teeth and claws tearing into her. More than she can set aside to find power as she falls, barely catching a glimpse of once-familiar red eyes wide with horror, gleaming with tears.</p><p>Red eyes surround her. White teeth. Red teeth. Darkness and oblivion would be welcome but there is only pain and screaming. Is it hers?</p>
<hr/><p>“An interesting death to be sure,” the voice says, and Summer is back in the present, blinding lights pounding into her eyes. Is this what death feels like for the Grimm she burns out of existence? She tries to close her eyes and can’t find the way to them.</p><p>“No no, let’s keep those open,” the voice says. A hand in a sterile white glove comes into her field of vision, casting blissful shadows over her eyes as he holds a bottle up, letting drops fall onto her. She tries to flinch, to blink, but nothing happens. Her eyes cease burning at least, though the hand moves away again and the lights return.</p><p>“The mechanism for this light you call is very curious,” the voice says. “Won’t you demonstrate it for me?”</p><p>Summer tries to focus, tries to move, tries to burn her way free, but she can’t even blink and something is running down her face, cold tears flowing down her temples. She can feel her temples, sensation returning.</p><p>Her skin tingles, shivers, she is cold as if she is lying in snow, almost cold enough not to shiver any longer. She can feel… restraints, unyielding bands at her joints, thin but inflexible, trapping her in delicate cages, gossamer steel, cutting into her flesh when she tries to move. Razor edged pain but still no motion. She tries to cry out in frustration and manages a muffled grunt this time.</p><p>“Ah, will you speak to me this time? Tell me what you need? Last time you did naught but curse and it was very unproductive. Still, your cooperation would make this proceed much more smoothly.”</p><p>Something around her jaw retracts, the cold metal stroking past the sides of her neck as the pressure around the lower half of her head finally vanishes.</p><p>“Where am I?” Her voice is hoarse, raspy.</p><p>“The afterlife,” the voice says, a cheerfulness to it that doesn’t suit how much she hurts, how little she can move and remember.</p><p>“I’m not dead.”</p><p>“Not currently. But you were. And you will be again, someday.”</p><p>Summer tries to struggle again and the voice sighs. “I’ll seal your jaw again if you continue these pointless thrashings. Imagine I am a Grimm and attempt to burn me away.”</p><p>“You aren’t a Grimm, Grimm don’t speak.”</p><p>“Is pain how you access your power?” the voice asks, and something against her stomach moves. A slight click, and her stomach is on fire. She can feel the torn flesh, the hundreds of lacerations. She can remember the Beowolves tearing her to pieces. How can she be alive with a body this torn to ribbons?</p><p>“Use your eyes.”</p><p>Her eyes will do nothing to stop this pain. Summer screams and screams.</p><p>The pain abruptly cuts off, numbness spreading through her core again. The voice sighs, sounding disappointed. “Not pain then. Pleasure?”</p><p>A different click, near her throat this time and she is home, in her bed with Tai under her, his body as warm as she is not but no, she is warm too, he is with her and in her and she laughs, leaning back. Their room is all sunlight as Raven kisses her, clever fingers on her skin as familiar sword-callused fingers rub over her stomach, caressing and wrapping her in love as Tai squirms, blushing as he calls her name.</p><p>Summer is under the bright lights, her eyes burning as she tries to cry as the memory cuts back off. Her heart aches, warmth slicing through her like a cauterizing blade, her spirit in shreds. It had been so real, that moment so long lost.</p><p>“Hmm, not pleasure,” the voice says. She can hear a sound like typing, then a hand comes into view again, and applies more drops to her wide-open eyes.</p><p>The lamps are brought closer. “There was something there though… not pleasure… is it happiness? Joy? I can take you through your memories again and again or you can simply tell me.”</p><p>Summer clamps her lips shut.</p><p>The voice sighs and Summer is home, chasing the girls through the garden.</p><p>Summer is baking, laughing as she pushes Qrow out of the kitchen before he can steal more dough, demanding he wait until it they’re done.</p><p>Summer is curled up on a rug, wrapped in a blanket with Raven as they share a mug of hot tea and watch the flames in the fireplace.</p><p>Summer is eating a strawberry Tai just picked out of the garden and watching him watch her, his smile brighter than the sun.</p><p>Summer is approaching the Grimm pool, holding the memory of her family close as she unleashes her power.</p>
<hr/><p>“Aha!” Summer is back under the lights, her eyes afire. She is blind, not blinded, and she can hear many clicks.</p><p>“Righteous fury and… love?” the voice sounds amused. “How unscientific. I wonder if it works that way for all of your kind or just for you. Well, we’ll have to wait until we can catch another of you to find out I suppose.</p><p>Summer gasps, gulping air, too many emotions. Disoriented and sick, her heart aching to be home, to be with those she loves. “Where am I?”</p><p>“Memory loss already? No, you aren’t… Ah. Still the afterlife. You’ll be back where you belong. Soon.”</p><p>Summer tries to struggle, but her body is drifting away again. She stares up into the lights, wondering if they are dimming or if she is dying truly. The gloved hands come into view, a gleaming mechanism positioned above her, shading her mercifully from the glare of the lights, until attachments lower and join with whatever is holding her eyelids pried back. She can feel the click as it locks in through her very bones, her skull suddenly held pinioned.</p><p>“Goodbye.”</p><p>She can’t close her eyes as the blades descend. At least it doesn’t hurt this time. Much.</p>
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